Monday, December 8, 2014

ACTION ALERTS - Amnesty; Gun Rights in Alexandria

FROM TEA PARTY PATRIOTS

Everyone,

...[Today] is extremely important if we are going to have an impact in stopping the President's massive overreach of power on executive amnesty. The House members appear to be ready to just go along with leadership and do nothing to fight back on this. They are using symbolic votes so that they can point back to this time at a later date and say they tried to stop it, when we know that the symbolic votes are just an easy out for them.

They have not yet seen the light, because they have not yet felt the heat. Representatives - including some of those we would otherwise have been counting on, including Reps who stood with us last year on the Defund ObamaCare effort - have told the press in recent days that they just aren't hearing from their constituents that this is a high-profile "must stop" thing. So tomorrow we're launching an effort to target Members for phone calls from their constituents. We're sending you the list tonight.

We know it is a few weeks before Christmas and people are busy planning for the holidays, but this is exactly what they are counting on.

Thank you for your efforts on this. If we are going to stop this, it is up to us. Help us spread the word!

In Liberty, Jenny Beth and the National Support Team

----------------------------------------------------------

FROM VCDL (action items at end; one ATP member has already indicated he will be there)

VA-ALERT: ACTION ITEM: Alexandria PD targeting gun owners!

The Alexandria police department has its officers going business to business, providing a flyer with **misinformation** on Virginia's gun laws, targeting mostly open carry.

Unfortunately for the police, a VCDL member was present when they came into a restaurant this morning, handed a flyer to the owner, and chatted with the owner for a few minutes.

Afterward, the restaurant owner showed the VCDL member the flyer and said that the police told him that he didn't have to allow open carry and if he saw somebody doing so, he could call the police!

While true - a business owner can call the police to enforce a trespass charge - it is certainly out of the ordinary for the police come into a business out of the blue and encourage a business owner to infringe on his customer's civil liberties.

The flyer particularly endangers 18 to 20 year olds as it incorrectly tells a store owner that if they see someone under 21-years-old with a handgun on their hip, that is illegal! That is NOT true and having the police show up on a bogus "man with a gun" call endangers everyone unnecessarily.

The flyer also makes these other FALSE claims about the law, which again could lead to unnecessary man-with-a-gun calls to the police:

* Open carry is not legal in churches

* Open carry is not legal in government buildings (we'll show that's not true when we flood their city hall on Saturday, December 13th - see below).

The flyer makes a point of saying that sometimes gun owners hold "demonstrations or events" to raise awareness of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms and those events "may cause alarm" and to call the police if the store owner sees "anything suspicious or of concern."

Aside from the blatant falsehoods, the flyer appears designed to demonize lawful open carry and to confuse and scare the business into calling the police to confront law-abiding gun owners. It does this by citing laws regarding reckless gun handling to paint a frightening image of gun owners brandishing and shooting up his establishment!

The police, of all people, should NOT mislead the public or actively seek to create a chilling effect on the exercise of civil liberties.

1. So openly carried guns aren't allowed in government buildings? Let's flood City Hall with gun owners wearing "Guns Save Lives" stickers on Saturday, December 13th from 9:30 AM to 10 AM during the public commentperiod. I will certainly be open carrying to make the point that it is NOT illegal and hopefully educate the police at the same time. I will also address City Council about the egregiousness of the police targeting law-abiding gun owners exercising their right to openly carry handguns.

Address:

City HallCouncil Chamber301 King StreetAlexandria, VA 22314

A big turnout would send a strong message that Virginia gun owners do not appreciate being discriminated against or having the police disseminating blatantly false, misleading, and inflammatory information to the public on gun laws.

The Alexandria police are providing false, misleading, and inflammatory flyers to businesses about gun owners openly carrying handguns. It is not the role of the police to foment public bias against gun owners. Direct the police department to stop handing out the offending flyers and spend their time looking for criminals instead of encouraging unnecessary confrontations with law-abiding citizens who are doing nothing more than exercising an important civil right.